Three Questions to Ask BEFORE Starting a Farm Business

Life happens.
Life will always get in the way.
Control what life can get in the way of.

I am writing this in the middle of a dad-duty day.

A day that has forced me to push what seems like an endless workload to the side.

And while I enjoy being a dad and spending days with my kids, this wasn’t one that I had planned on (at least not the whole day).

Today was a dad day because it had to be a dad day.

My wife is down with a bad cold and that has left me shuttling around my daughters to daughter activities while the work phone rings and emails stack up.

Trust me, I enjoy being a dad and spending time with my kids, but I like to do it on my terms when I plan on it, and for it.

It’s when you don’t plan on something happening, and it happens, that the stress sets in.

When so much is out of your control, control what you can.

This goes for life and it goes for business.

When it comes to business, you can’t control what happens after you start, but you can control where you start.

Try to get that part right.

Running any business will require a lot, which is out of your control – being at the mercy of suppliers, customers will have issues, people won’t email you or call you back, product will get lost or go bad, weather will happen, and of course life will happen.

None of this is in your control and that means it will be stressful at times.

But the good part about a lot of these things is that they are details, or simple nuances of the overall business. They just happen. They aren’t part of the fundamental core.

Bad customers will come and go, suppliers will have missteps, mistakes will be made, but usually they are temporary coming and going, only to come and go again.

But selecting a business that you hate, creating a product that doesn’t solve anyone’s problem, or not having a large enough market for your product are problems that can haunt you forever.

If the foundation is weak, then little things piling on will cause it all to crumble.

So while you are don’t truly have your heart in a business something will break, while you are stressing about why people aren’t buying your product a supplier will flake-out, and while your sales are low a drought will happen. Stress on top of stress and it will only be a matter of time before you start asking – Why keep going?

Think about it…

If you aren’t profitable and a vendor screws you over, that hurts.

If you are profitable and a vendor screws you over, then it’s probably something you will have the resources to work through – both financially and mentally. It hurts, just not as bad.

The details, the little things, they will always happen, get the foundation right.

When it comes to getting the foundation right, there are a few common areas that most people (including myself) tend to get wrong…

Is there a market?

Will that market pay what you need them to pay?

Is the market big enough?

If you can’t answer these questions prior to starting any business, then you will be spending a lot of time stressing about why you don’t have enough sales, why people are always complaining about the price, and why it feels like you are doing a lot of work and not making any money. Trust me… been there, done that. It’s stressful.

If a business isn’t working and stuff goes wrong, you will start to hate that business.

If a business is working and stuff goes wrong, that’s just part of running a business.

Maybe over simplified, but you get the point.

Try to get the foundation right.

Above I specifically said to “try” to get it right.

I think that is all it takes. Trying is better than not trying here. Putting in some effort will separate you from the hoards of people who put in no effort.

Before you start any business, ask:

Is there a market?
-Who are they?
-What is their problem?
-Where are they – physically and online?
-How can you reach them?

Will that market pay what you need them to pay?
-What do you need them to pay – what are your costs?
-Will they actually pay your price to solve their problem?
-Is that price realistic for them?

Is the market big enough?
-Really, how large is the market?
-Is it large enough to justify all of this work?
-How much do you have to do in sales to get to where you want to go, can this market support that level of sales?

Spending some time in Evernote or on paper really thinking about these questions and doing some research will pay off big time in the long run.

You don’t have to get these perfectly correct, you just have to be close and avoid huge NOs.